


Voices, Oh the Voices

by Le_kunokimchi



Series: Prancing Around Insanity's Lot [2]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Character Study, Hurt Klaus Hargreeves, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Klaus Hargreeves Deserves Better, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Klaus Hargreeves Needs Help, Klaus Hargreeves Whump, Klaus Hargreeves-centric, Other, Post-Canon, Sober Klaus Hargreeves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:33:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24624004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Le_kunokimchi/pseuds/Le_kunokimchi
Summary: “Your powers,” the blonde refines, awkwardly rubbing his neck as the entire room went silent to look at him expectantly, “Ben said you see ghosts everywhere whenever you’re sober so I guess I’m- We’re all- a little curious... What’s it like? What are they like?”“What’s it like…” Klaus mumbles under his breath, his eyes losing focus and his smile disappearing as he contemplates… REALLY contemplates ‘what’s it like’.
Relationships: Klaus Hargreeves & Everyone
Series: Prancing Around Insanity's Lot [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1779967
Comments: 10
Kudos: 557





	Voices, Oh the Voices

“What’s it like?”

Klaus pauses from his knitting, his expression unreadable as he stares at the needles distantly.

He knew this conversation was going to be brought up eventually, it was inevitable from the moment Six opened his ‘once-too-dead-to-care-about-censoring’ mouth. He had carelessly released a cork that had been securing a pressurized bottle for more than twenty-five years. And as a result, the contents of it exploded right in all of their faces. It was all from that sudden jerk of the stopper, it should have been slowly eased out; the pressure should have gradually dissipated from gentle coaxing. But no, too late now, ‘Rip it off like a band-aid’ he said, ‘They can handle it’ he said.

Their wary looks in his direction from time to time and subtle pity in the way they carry themselves around him he would hardly count as ‘handling it’. Nobody gets too close to him, everybody is too benign and soft-spoken, like they're regarding a spooked wild animal rather than their once-labeled-the-useless-junkie brother.

But he smiles anyway and quirks an eyebrow, glancing up at Luther for elaboration.  
“What’s what like?”  
He feigns ignorance. Perhaps he’ll lose his balls to strike up the topic? Ha, who is he kidding? This is their ‘Number One’ he’s talking about- he knows nothing about social boundaries and appropriate inquiry of one’s personal affairs.

Four’s life is a long list of mistakes and trauma; a listicle in which he’d rather not dive in to. He doesn’t wish to relive the events nor does he want to enlighten them on why he’s so fucked-up in the head. They don’t deserve it; they don’t deserve their thirst (for blackmail and pity-party/pain-comparison material) to be quenched. They never wanted to be in his life? Fine; but now that they’re back, together again, doesn’t mean he’ll give his autobiography readily. Trust and opening-up takes time, especially after said people didn’t give a damn about his life before.  
How ironic that the most easy-going and talkative sibling is actually the most guarded when it came to things that mattered to him.

“Your powers,” the blonde refines, awkwardly rubbing his neck as the entire room went silent to look at him expectantly, “Ben said you see ghosts everywhere whenever you’re sober so I guess I’m- We’re all- a little curious... What’s it like? What are they like?”

“What’s it like…” Klaus mumbles under his breath, his eyes losing focus and his smile disappearing as he contemplates… REALLY contemplates ‘what’s it like’. 

Like your drowning? Like you can’t breathe? Like your vision is blurred? Like your hearing is muffled? But there is no water. No water at all. You’re drowning, but not in the ocean. Not in a lake. Not in a river. Not in a stream. Not even in the bathtub.  
But in voices.

A sea of people: both living and not, both screaming and whispering, both enraged and desperate…  
They are everywhere and nowhere at the same time; you’re surrounded by a constant blaring of white noise but if you were asked to pinpoint a single voice, you wouldn’t be able to. They merge together, all demanding something you can’t give them, pleading for something they can’t have. The shouting of those who still have a beating heart is lost beneath the waves; the soft touch of their warm fleshy skin is a mere shadow to the icy skeletal-like limbs clawing their way to acknowledgment.  
You just can’t seem to get enough oxygen, no matter how deep of breaths you take. You can’t seem to rid yourself of the bone-chilling fear that you’ll never resurface from the dark, muddled shoal that has encompassed everything. And you just sink, you are sinking down… deeper and deeper… there’s no light to beckon you, no hand to pull you out… just sinking like an anchor, until you hit rock bottom. And then, you plop out the other side; you’re no longer in the same room, with the same ghosts… No, you’re back in the mausoleum now, unbreakable stone walls on all four sides, familiar ghosts catching sight of their one and only visitor with ravenous enthusiasm. They welcome their guest with shrieking comparable to a hundred banshees; they are so angry at being dead, at being forgotten, at being ignored… but hey! New flesh! New flesh that can see them, hear them. Help them? HELP THEM HELP THEM HELP THEM, but you can’t. You can’t help the forsaken, even when they were your dead brother. Even when they are your dead lover. You just can’t, you try but to no avail. The furious ones, the inhuman ones… they are beyond God’s reach. They are lost to the afterlife. And you don’t know why, you just know that they are; you know they can’t return to the living and you know that only a chosen few may leave to the monochrome utopia. They are stuck in the in-between; they live their days with a foot in either realm. And you… you are the gatekeeper. You are their gatekeeper. Because you live in both realms as well but can pass through to either side willingly; because you can never die permanently and you are technically only alive enough to interact with the living; because you can pull people from the other side into a world of corporeality; because you know the secrets of life and lies of death because you have experienced both and observed them take place through various perspectives.

Your eyes see it all, whether you wanted to or not. And the dead hate you for it. The envious living hate you for it. Even God hates you for it. 

So you stop looking. But if you close your eyes, it’s to no avail; you’ll still hear it all.  
So then you block out the noise.  
But if you close your eyes and cover your ears, it’s still to no avail; you can still feel it, feel them.  
So then you become numb.  
And you’re drinking, smoking, snorting, injecting, swallowing anything you can get your hands on because it’s so much more than just chasing a high; it’s about encompassing yourself in a blissful bubble of breathing, pleasant-looking faces, and silence. And there’s no need to flinch and there’s no need to cry and there’s no need to run and there’s no need to die. It’s just you living, really living, a life everyone else so easily participates in; it’s you placing both feet within their proper realm and smoking the key in your next blunt. It’s about you being relatively normal and seeing things how they should have so naively been seen.  
And sooner or later, it’s not the drugs you get addicted to: it’s the life. 

Klaus shrugs nonchalantly. “Oh, you know… your typical bloody corpse here and there.”  
His gaze settles on the knitting-needles detachedly, noticing his siblings exchange looks through his peripheral vision.  
“Erm… d-do you hear them too? Do they say anything to you?” Diego asked, watching his brother in slight discomfort.  
Hm, interesting… they all appeared unsettled. Ben, you rascal, how much did you say to them?  
“I suppose they try,” Four replies lackadaisically. A smile twists his features as he adds in faux fondness, “But their voices, oh the voices… they are not so kind on the ears.”

**Author's Note:**

> Not really digging the title but oh well


End file.
